Flu season is just around the corner, and on Friday the province announced the publicly-funded flu vaccine will be offered starting October 23.
The free shot will be offered at public health clinics, participating pharmacies and some physician and nurse practitioner offices.
The shot is available to anyone six months and older, but doctors especially recommend it for people who are high risk.
“If you have underlying risk factors, like chronic heart or lung disease, or if you’re over the age of 65 or if you’re a child (age) six months to five years or a woman who’s pregnant, especially second or third trimester, that’s when influenza itself can result in more severe complications, including a need for hospitalization,” Saskatchewan Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab said, adding that caregivers of people who are high risk should also get the vaccine.
“Or it can result in second degree pneumonia or it can worsen your underlying health conditions. For example if you have a chronic heart condition, getting the flu can dip you into heart failure and hospitalization. In those situations, the flu vaccine is especially important and it reduces severe outcome and hospitalization.”
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Dr. Shahab said vaccination rates in Saskatchewan are declining.
“We had one out of every two people getting the flu vaccine in the pandemic, there was a 50 per cent uptake and that was our best year (2009),” Dr. Shahab said.
“Since that, our numbers have gone down from one in three to about one in four, about a 25 per cent uptake over the last couple years. We are really keen to get the uptake higher in persons who are high risk, so while the overall uptake is about 25 per cent, about 60 per cent of seniors choose to get the vaccine. Certainly that number should be higher for seniors because they are at high risk. For infant six months to age five, the uptake is about 40 per cent but that certainly can be higher.”
Only the injectable vaccine will be available tin Saskatchewan in 2017-18. The injectable vaccine provides protection four strains of flu most likely to circulate this season, including the more severe H3N2.
For information on flu clinic locations and schedules you can check your local health region website, or call your local public health office or HealthLine 811.
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